1. Not so sweet

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In Chicago in 2011, 55-year-old Ledell Peoples blamed his girlfriend for stealing his bag of Halloween sweets. Not a major crime you might think? But no! An argument started between him and his girlfriend, 49-year-old Maria Adams, when she threw a plate at Peoples’s head. It smacked him in the head cutting him just above his eye. Enraged, he grabbed a knife and stabbed her to death.

2. Insurance scam

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In Texas in 1974, Ronald Clark O’Bryan had fallen deeply into debt and had no way out of his predicament, until he dreamt up a terrible solution: killing off his son to claim on an insurance policy. So on Halloween, he brought some potassium cyanide and added it to some sherbet straws, which he then gave to his son, daughter and three other children in the area.

Urging his son on to eat the tainted straws, his boy began vomiting non stop and was dead before he even reached the hospital. O’Bryan earned the nicknames ‘The candy man’ and ‘The man who killed Halloween’. He was executed via lethal injection. Truly the worst of our 8 Horrifying Halloween murders

3. Doorstep death

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Los Angeles 1957, Peter Fabiano was having marriage problems with his wife Betty which led to her leaving to move in with a friend, Joan Rabel. After a while, Peter and Betty made up and she moved back in, much to the annoyance of Rabel! She conspired with another woman called Goldyne Pizer to kill Peter on Halloween whilst wearing a mask to blend in on the night. Wearing red gloves, face paint and a mask, they both sat outside the Fabiano house for hours, waiting for the couple to go to bed. Finally, when the lights went out, Pizer strolled up to the house and rang the doorbell. Fabiano answered, expecting trick or treaters and was shot dead by Pizer.

4. Eggy ending

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Whilst driving through the dangerous Bronx in New York with his girlfriend and son, Karl Jackson became irked when his car was egged by some Halloween tricksters. Getting out to confront the kids, they had a brief argument before Jackson got back into his and drove off. Annoyed by this, one of the youths got into his car, chased Jackson down and shot him dead a few blocks later.

5. Random hit

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Little Tony Bagley, 7, was out treat or treating in a skeleton costume with his mum, sister and aunt early on Halloween night in 1994, in Las Vegas. Trotting along enjoying their night, they were suddenly confronted by a man in a hooded top who started shooting at the family indiscriminately before jumping into a car and zooming off. His sister was hit in the liver, his aunt in the leg and his mum in the chest. They all survived, but poor little Tony did not. His murder remains unsolved.

6. Trick or death

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On Halloween in 2008, drug dealer Quentin Patrick of South Carolina heard a knock at his door. Thinking it was a rival gang coming to bump him off, he grabbed his AK-47 and fired at least 29 bullets through his front door. Unfortunately, the caller was 12-year-old T.J Darrisaw with his dad and brother out trick or treating for the night. Eleven bullets hit poor T.J killing him, but his dad and brother survived despite being shot.

7. ‘Haunted house’ murders

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On Halloween in 2010, William Liske Jr. broke into the home of his father, William Liske, in Ohio USA. Liske Jr then killed his father, his new wife and one of her sons. Later in the day, another son, Devon Griffin, stumbled upon the horrific crime. Thinking it was a Halloween prank, Griffin soon discovered it wasn’t. His mother, brother and stepfather had been brutally murdered in a scene like ‘something from a haunted house’. Liske Jr, who suffered from a history of mental illness, was later arrested in the halfway house where he stayed in Sandusky, Ohio.

8. Halloween horror

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After handing out treat to kids all night in 2004, roommates Leslie Mazzara, Adriane Insogna and Lauren Meanza all went to bed. But Meanza was woken at about 1am by the sounds of a scuffle upstairs. Terrified, she ran from the house and hid in the garden. A short while later, she spotted someone climbing out of a window. She ran back into the house to find both of her roommates dead, stabbed to death. The killer was on the loose for a year, until DNA evidence found on cigarette butts pointed to a man called Eric Copple. A fiancé of one of Insogna’s friends, he thought their friendship was threatening his upcoming wedding, so paranoid Copple murdered Insogna and her roommate in a violent attack.

For the best supernatural stories this Halloween, pick up a copy of Chat it’s Fate – in stores now.

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